Absence of Color On Chicago City Hall Beat Comes Shining Through

CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot won't sit for one-on-one interviews with white journalists to mark her second anniversary as Chicago's boss.

As a man of Polish-and-Italian descent with decades of experience covering three Chicago mayors, dozens of crooked aldermen and the slimiest political operatives, I'm outraged — by all the journalists whining about it.

NBC 5 political reporter Mary Ann Ahern, who probably has asked Lightfoot more questions than any journalist in town, broke the news on social media.

"As ⁦@chicagosmayor⁩ reaches her two year midway point as mayor, her spokeswoman says Lightfoot is granting 1 on 1 interviews - only to Black or Brown journalists," Ahern wrote.

To me, the tweet seemed to suggest that after two years in office, Lightfoot would never have individual sit-downs with white reporters again. Ahern didn't respond to a question about whether the social media post was misleading.

Regardless, the tweet set off a firestorm of criticism that snowballed into a national story about what plenty of people labeled as the racist edict of a Black lesbian mayor.

But white reporters were never permanently uninvited for one-on-one interviews. Lightfoot's decision to mark her second mayoral anniversary with reporters of color is a one-time thing aimed at highlighting the racial disparity in local news outlets that gets ignored.

White men make up a supermajority of the owners, chief executives, publishers and top editors of the Tribune, Sun-Times, Crain's Chicago Business, Block Club, top-rated radio and TV news stations and Patch, to name a few.

And, as Lightfoot pointed out in an open letter to journalists, the City Hall press corps in our mostly minority city is "practically all white."

In addition to being mostly white, a majority of City Hall reporters live in either posh North Side neighborhoods or out in the suburbs.

"It is impossible for this glaring lack of diversity not to be reflected in the daily coverage of government, politics and city life every single day," Lightfoot wrote.

The mayor isn't wrong. Don't just take it from this white reporter who lives on the far South Side.

Hermene Hartman, publisher of the African American news magazine, N'Digo, told me outrage over offering one day of "exclusive" interviews — a regular practice in politics — to Black and Latino reporters is proof there needs to be "a paradigm shift in white media."

"Exclusives are the norm. What's the big deal about that? Except most exclusives go to white reporters," she said. "Number 2, these newsrooms are white. They are male. And they do need to diversify. … Perspectives matter. Insights matter. Opinions matter. And depending on the lens you look through, that's what you write. That's what you report."

In a letter to journalists, Lightfoot challenged news outlets to hire "reporters of color — and especially women of color to cover Chicago politics, and City Hall in particular."

She asked if news operations are actively recruiting, training and providing opportunities for Black and Latino journalists to cover important beats and have a voice on editorial boards.

"Have you analyzed your own coverage to identify and root out implicit bias?" the mayor wrote.

On Wednesday, some reporters dismissed Lightfoot's message and reframed the symbolic Black-and-Latino exclusive interviews as an attempt to control the news narrative.

Tribune City Hall reporter Greg Pratt, who is Latino, tweeted that he "respectfully cancelled" an interview with Lightfoot because "politicians don't get to choose who covers them."

But of course they do. Powerful white politicians have been doing it since the beginning of time.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley never lined up every reporter in town for an interview of wide-ranging questions. For decades, it was a City Hall tradition to whisper scoops about mayoral trial balloons and the annual budget proposal to a favored reporter.

Lightfoot's mayoral predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, regularly had his spin machine tap hand-picked reporters for sit-down chats on pre-approved topics.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker's communication staff doesn't return emails to certain reporters, including me — and once attempted to ban a radio reporter with TV news credentials from attending press conferences because he didn't like her questions.

Lightfoot reminded the journalism clique covering her administration that she doesn't owe any particular reporter a private audience, especially for the meaningless milestone marking the midpoint of her first term.

"She dropped a bomb on white media. The white media has been horrible on this girl," Hartman said. "She did a turnaround, OK."

For months, Lightfoot has been at war with reporters, including Ahern, whom the mayor called "disrespectful" at a news conference. Lightfoot canceled her Tribune subscription over reporting on her administration's policy on issuing parking tickets during the pandemic that she considered "dead wrong." She has openly criticized stories written by reporters who regularly cover City Hall from Crain's, WBEZ and the Sun-Times.

Lightfoot had to know there would be a negative response to limiting one-on-one anniversary interviews to reporters of color.

Frankly, her press team didn't stick the landing on delivering the message.

Ahern's tweet went viral before Lightfoot's explanation for the PR stunt aimed at advocating for newsroom diversity made it to reporters' inboxes. "If you're explaining, you're losing," as a crisis communications expert put it.

But what's most concerning is the vigorous blowback from journalists over a move to earmark a single day exclusively for Black and Latino reporters to interview the mayor — and the collective unwillingness of reporters and white journalism executives to consider Lightfoot's offer as an opportunity to give other journalists a shot pressing the mayor on the state of her administration.

Instead, City Hall sources told me that after a Lightfoot spokeswoman told Ahern on Tuesday that NBC wouldn't get a customary anniversary interview with the mayor, the political reporter called the decision "reverse racism."

On Friday, Crain's Chicago Business turned down Lightfoot's personal "unsolicited offer" to grant an interview to general assignment reporter Wendell Hutson, who is Black, if two white reporters weren't allowed to sit in.

"Our response to the mayor’s offer was that Wendell would be happy to talk with the mayor at any time if [political reporters] Greg [Hinz] and A.D. [Quig] were also included in the conversation," Crain's Editor Ann Dwyer said. "The mayor declined."

On Wednesday, Ahern told WGN 720 AM host John Williams that she wonders if Lightfoot's move was a personal attack.

"Does [Lightfoot] think I'm racist?" Ahern said. "Is that what she's saying?"

The veteran political reporter, who is white, labeled the Lightfoot's move to blackball pale-skinned reporters on her mayoral anniversary as an effort to "avoid tough questions."

That's the kind of dagger wielded by a white journalist that Hartman, the N'Digo publisher, says cuts the deepest.

"Then, white media says, '[Black and Latino] reporters aren't going to ask you the tough questions. You demoralize the Black press. You mean I didn't ask a hard question?" she said. "Are you kidding me. F---."

Besides, it's not like Ahern's first anniversary interview with Lightfoot last year put the screws to the mayor mid-pandemic.

Ahern lobbed questions like a 16-inch softball, starting off with: "What letter grade do you give yourself?"

And she ended with and a query about the mayor's puffy pandemic hair-do and post-pandemic lockdown plans.

"I don't care about your hair, but people asked me to ask," Ahern said.

If that's what we're missing out on, well, it ain't much.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

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